Monday, August 24, 2015

Since being
elected in 2011, most of the discussions I have heard in the Senedd have been
around reducing taxes in order to grow the Welsh economy, rather than the need
for taxation to pay for public services. When you look at the cost of private
education and private health care, it puts into perspective the value for money
we get from our taxation system.

Taxation
exists to pay for public services. Too many people believe that we can have the
same quality of public services as Scandinavia but have a taxation system which
is more like that of the USA. It is not by random chance that those countries with the
highest tax levels have the best public services and those with lowest tax
levels the poorest. It is because taxation is necessary to raise the money to
pay for the public services we all need.

Quality
public services - be they health, education or infrastructure - come at a
substantial cost to the public purse and the only way of paying for them is via
taxation. Taxation can be on income, profit, consumption/ expenditure or value
of land and property - or a combination of all of them. But if people want quality
public services, these are the taxes needed to pay for them.

Whilst nobody likes to pay taxes, and some rich individuals and multi-national companies are expert at reducing their tax payments, providing
quality public services means that, if some people do not pay then either
public services suffer or others have to make up the shortfall. Every time tax
cuts are made, they are shown as beneficial and they appear to be to those who
are paying less tax and have more money in their pocket. The effect that these reductions in government income have on public expenditure on
services such as health, local government and education are completely ignored
until the cuts start affecting people.

The more difficult a tax is to avoid, the more unpopular it is with
the rich and powerful. By far the most difficult taxes to avoid are the
property taxes (non-domestic rates and council tax). There are no tricks, such
as using internal company transactions or having non-domiciled status, to avoid
paying the tax. The buildings - whether they are residential, manufacturing, commercial
or retail - are not movable and the tax becomes liable on the property and has to
be paid.

If we desire quality public services then we have to
pay for them, via taxation. This is not the start of a campaign for higher taxes but it is
linking taxation with expenditure. Remember the old adage: you only get what you
pay for.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

It
is, unfortunately, not a caricature to say that much comment on the recent
election has consisted of vigorous assertion by the Labour Party right that the
programme was too left wing, countered equally vigorously by the left that it
was not left wing enough! Supporting evidence has been scanty, beyond the cry
of ‘1983’ from the right, countered by ‘1945’ from the left.

The
leadership campaign has, if anything, made this situation worse, with fear of a
Corbyn win having elicited some desperate responses from the right, and from
the other candidates,and, while Corbyn
himself, to his very great credit, has stuck to an elaboration of policy, many
of his supporters on the blogosphere have sunk to the level of their opponents.

It
is surely only by a rational analysis, rather than blind assertion, that Labour
can again successfully promote itself in 2020 or before, and this article looks at some of the more
considered evidence and opinion about the recent election than that referred to
above. Much of this has not received the attention it should have done,
although there will hopefully be a renewed focus on this when the official ‘Learning Lessons’ enquiryis published
next month.

The
most important areas of investigation can, I think, be reasonably grouped under
these main headings:

How
the UK voted, by region, age, gender, class and other relevant distinctions.

How
the new electoral situation has changed Labour’s prospects.

How
potential and actual Labour voters viewed the party’s appeal.

The
impact of UKIP and the Greens.

Why
Scotland moved from Labour to the SNP.

Why
the pollsters got it wrong again.

I
shall cite some of the main findings under these headings and comment briefly
on each.

How
we voted

The biggest single change was Scotland, where Labour’s loss of 40
seats was a huge blow, which will not be easily reversed, and obviously makes it
much more difficult for Labour to gain a majority. It also means that we now
have three different electoral systems – Northern Ireland, which was always
different, and now Scotland, because of its domination by the SNP. The main
system is what remains, in England and Wales. Here there were significant
variations between the main regions, with London and the three Northern regions
experiencing the biggest swing to Labour, with small to negative swings
elsewhere, including, inexplicably, Wales. However, extra Labour votes were
largely at their strongest in seats already held by Labour, and much weaker in
the small towns and suburban areas that Labour needed to take.

The
Lib-Dem vote went to Labour more than any other party (24%), but the Tories
got, crucially, not much less at 20%, and the Greens 11%. Over 65s were twice
as Conservative than Labour, with a much higher turnout, while voters became
progressively more Labour as they became younger, but with a progressively
lower turnout. Women, except the over 65s, were more Labour than men,
particularly the young. There was some reversion to social class alignment, but
the middle class Labour vote largely held, but turnout was much higher among
the more Conservative inclined social groups. The Conservatives lost heavily to
UKIP, as did Labour to a lesser extent, mainly
from the older white male working class. Labour remains strong among BAME
voters, but the Conservatives have increased their share here. Workers in the
private sector are more Conservative, those in the public sector Labour, but
less so. Those with more qualifications tended to Labour, those with fewer to
the Conservatives.

It
is clear that, unless Labour can either increase its turnout among the under 35s
and the D/E social groups, or increase
its support among the over 65s, and preferably both, then winning is going to
be very difficult. Labour must pay urgent attention to these tasks as well as
analysing its failure to capture more than a handful of Conservative seats, and
losing some to them.

The
new electoral situation

Prior to the election, Labour had an in-built
advantage, all of which has not only gone, but the advantage has swung the
other way to the Conservatives, and that is before any boundary changes, which
they will no doubt push through prior to the next election.

There
are three main reasons for this reversal of fortunes. Firstly Scotland, where
Labour’s huge loss of 40 seats contrasted with the Conservative’s nil loss; the
huge decline in the Lib-Dem vote meaning that the opportunity for tactical
voting, either by Labour to keep the Conservatives out or by the Lib-Dems to keep
Labour in has largely disappeared; and the swing to the Conservatives in their
marginal seats meaning that they are less marginal.

Several
commentators have pointed to the huge challenge that Labour faces here, and of
the necessity of winning back votes from the Conservatives if Labour is to win
in 2020. This is strictly not true, as a combination of votes lost to the SNP,
UKIP, the Greens and of new voters and previous non voters could suffice, but
it is unlikely that all of that could happen simultaneously, and there is no
longer a big Lib-Dem vote to be inherited.

How
voters saw Labour

There have been a number of surveys on this, most of which
have highlighted similar concerns. The most important were concern over
Labour’s past and future handling of the economy, immigration, too generous
welfare, control by the SNP and Miliband’s credibility as leader. Anti
aspiration and anti business were lesser factors, as was austerity, about which
there has been an interesting debate.

It
is hardly surprising that Labour is viewed poorly on the economy, as its
biggest mistake was not to defend its record in government prior to 2010 and
allowing the myth that the deficit was Labour’s fault to become widely
believed. Not having put forward a coherent alternative to austerity policies means
there is little support for something that is not policy, which is not the same
as support for austerity. The problem with the ’immigration problem’ is that it
can embrace much, from racist opposition to any non white immigration since the
1940s to justifiable concern with pressure on local services caused by migrant
European workers. Here and on welfare,
myths abound, but Labour’s rather desperate pronouncements on these issues
prior to the election indicate thatmuch
work is needed here.

UKIP
and the Greens

Both, predictably, did very well, despite ending up with only one
MP apiece. The Greens, thanks to the Lib-Dem implosion have probably secured
lasting extra support, now at 4% although clearly at Labour’s expense. In most
of the seats lost to the Conservatives, the Green vote was higher than the
margin of loss.

But
it is UKIP that is now the most significant extra force. The failure to even
win a seat for Farage highlights the injustice of our electoral system and may
well serve to boost pressure for the adoption of some form of PR, and UKIP are
likely to remain strong at least up to the forthcoming referendum. Thereafter
it is, assuming a by no means certain win for remaining in, partly a question
of how the Conservatives position themselves, but it is difficult to see UKIP
sustaining its momentum,although its appeal
now goes well beyond the EU to cover immigration and nostalgia for the whole
gamut of reactionary prejudice. The decline of UKIP would help the
Conservatives most, but Labour as well, although it would make it harder for
Labour to win overall.

Scotland

As indicated above, this now effectively constitutes a separate electoral
system, about which much has been written, which I do not intend to add to,
except to say that without a significant number of Scottish MPs Labour’s task
is much harder. With the SNP having firmly established itself as the dominant
Scottish party there can be no assumption that, in the short run at least, those
seats will be won back.

The
pollsters

They got it wrong again, more badly than at any time since 1992. To
be fair, it was only Labour and Conservative that they got badly out, by three points too many for Labour
and the same too few for the Conservatives, thus enabling a majority government
to narrowly emerge, and experts on a hung parliament to go back to their ivory
towers. Investigation into the reasons for this error are ongoing, with not
much evidence of a late swing over Scotland, nor of ‘Shy’ Conservatives (i.e.
those deliberately lying), but some evidence of turnout by Labour being down
for those indicating their intention to vote.

This
brief summary of what happened on May7th has not touched on the wider and more
important issues that will determine Labour’s future. Can Labour win on the
basis of a populist social democracy now being promoted by Jeremy Corbyn here and
elsewhere in Europe? Or is a reheated Blairism the only way back to power? Is our
unjust electoral system a barrier to change, and is PR the only way forward?
Did Labour lose because of a number of factors which can be changed, or is its
plight part of the crisis of social democracy afflicting similar parties in
Europe.

Such
questions and others will be debated in the coming period, but in order to move
forward we must have a clear idea of what actually happened.

For
those interested in further reading, I list some of the main sources below:

Friday, August 14, 2015

I have
always wondered how the First World War generals could have been so stupid
trying the same tactic time after time. Yet more of what failed in 2010 and
2015 a form of austerity light is considered by some the solution next time. If
it fails in 2020 we can always try it again in 2025.

You win elections when you give the electorate
hope. When they think you are on their side. Labour lost in 1959 and in 2015 because
we were not prepared to differentiate ourselves from the Tories. We are the
party that stands up for the poor, the down trodden and exploited. We are the
party of the ordinary workers and their families not of the casino capitalists
of the city of London.

I want to
debunk two myths. Firstly is that you keep the last election vote and add to
it.

Remember the
last election, the experts, the leadership, the planners had it all worked out.
All we need to do to win is add the disillusioned Liberal Democrat to our 2010
voters and we would win. According to electoral calculus 7 % of the electorate
who voted Lib Dem in 2010 voted Labour in 2015 so we should have won or at
least come a close second.

But 2% of
2010 Labour voters voted SNP, 1% voted UKIP, 2% voted Tory and 1% voted Green. If
we had held on to that vote we would have polled 36.4% of the vote to the
Conservatives 36.9%.

We cannot
take our voters for granted and try and gain some conservative ones by moving to
the right. Some people have said we lost due to lazy Labour voters not voting. It
is my view we lost because too many ex Labour voters could not see how we would
make their lives better. Why voting Labour would make a difference.

The second
myth is that you win elections from the centre ground. If that was true the Lib
Dems would win every election Although the Liberal Democrats most successful
elections have been when they moved to the left.

Was the
Attlee government in 1945 in the centre ground?

Were the
Wilson Governments in the centre ground?

Was Thatcher
in the centre ground?

Is Cameron
in the centre ground?

We in Wales, when led by Rhodri Morgan, set
clear red water between us and the Labour Party in London and we won.

What are my constituents telling me

Statements
on my Facebook feed from my constituents include:

“If he (Jeremy) gets elected as leader of the Labour Party I
will come back from the Greens the only other party that leans to the left and
in support of the people.”

“I believe it needs to change people’s
minds and lead rather than take the populist view. That's what it was good at
back when it started. Make fairness, caring and looking after the worker and
the disadvantaged an electable ticket rather than trying to be a less
conservative Tory party”

“I feel the Labour Party has forgotten its
roots and those who started it. It was from trade unionists we came!! For a
Labour Party to abstain from voting on welfare rights is completely
diabolical.”

Finally, we win when we offer the electorate
hope, when we appear economically competent, when we appear a party of
principle - and that is why I am
supporting Jeremy Corbyn for leader.